Public opinion is split between agreeing with their ideals and being annoyed by their gridlock of commuter traffic. More and more people are turning against the Occupy Movement simply because the movement is more of an inconvenience than a friend to the common man. In order for the movement to succeed, rather than be viewed as a disorganized TEA Party of the left, they need to embrace key principles that everyone can see the merit in. After winning general support, these principles need to made reality.

In order to win popular support Occupy Wall Street needs to embrace and express their following ideals:

A Job For Every Man

Unemployment among the Occupy Wall Street protesters is six percent higher than the national average. Having a job is not only a requirement for stability in also plays a key role in self-esteem, lifestyle, and happiness. Everyone is better off when people have more jobs; corporations make a higher profit, the government collects more taxes, and there is food on the tables of the new employees. Everybody wins. This route for this change is through Congress, the senators should support jobs bills because it supports their own constituencies. The protesters of Occupy Wall Street wants jobs, if they can find forums to actualize this simple vision they will gain public support and make a real difference in everyone’s lives.

One Person, One Vote

America is based on the idea of equal representation for all people; however, I truthfully doubt anyone reading this article has ever given money to a lobbyist. I know I have not and even if I did my life’s savings would not even be accounted as a rounding error in comparison to corporate expenditure or financing from the richest one percent. Currently in America those with the most money have the greatest political power; that is why many of the richest Americans have no problem dodging taxes while the middle class buckles under flat wages and massive debt. This gulf in political power illustrates the decay of the American integrity.

Lawrence Lessig, answers this dilemma in his book Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress–and a Plan to Stop It, with legislative subsidies. Currently corporations and the plutocrats have excessive power because they have a disproportionate savings of money to finance their political campaigns. The legislative subsidies would give every American a tax rebate to give to political organizations or candidates of their choice. Each person is given the exact same amount of political dollars. This levels the playing field and gives every American an equal voice in the ballot box and in the campaigning.

The Senate is too polarized to embrace this radical change and the Supreme Court would also be divided because of its questionable censures of the first amendment. This change would have to come from the executive branch and a powerful president willing to sacrifice everything, perhaps including his presidency, for the good of America.

Corporation are Not People

The Civil War was fought to bring the fourteenth amendment, declaring that all people are people, has used approximately 150 times during the nineteenth century; 15 of those cases protected the rights of blacks, the remaining 135 were used to protect corporation. In the eyes of the law corporations are artificial persons and are entitled to all the rights that people are. This includes unlimited campaign donations and investing in lobbyists to secure contracts for them. The legal basis behind the fallacy is that since corporations are organizations of people and since peaceful assemblies are clearly protected in the constitution then corporations are as well.

Artificial people are not humans, people are people. A collection of algorithms, buildings, products, and data charts should not have larger voice in my government than any tax paying citizen. Our founding fathers declared no taxation without representation. Occupy Wall Street proclaim that there is no representation for those under taxation. Amending this mistake, along with its subsidies such as Citizen United v. FEC, will come down to the Supreme Court declaring corporations are not people. The people within corporations can still make their opinions known; however, since the chief job of corporations is to make money that should be the field they are confided to. Non-profits, activism groups, and other like-minded organizations who are genially interested in the future of America, not including lucrative contracts, should have a voice in Washington DC.

And In Summary…

To make real change on this front Occupy Wall Street needs to either put its own supporters in the Senate, such as Elizabeth Warren, who believe in protecting the common man. We need to restructure how voting is done in this country so the party with the most support, not the politicians with the best financing. The Occupy Wall Street also must make amendments to the Constitution to secure human rights only for humans. We are in a Second Gilded Age today, where the plutocrats and corporations run the show at the expense of you and me. This must change. Occupy Wall Street is the unrefined vehicle for progressive change in America, with a little hard work she will dazzle the world and change history.

Impoverished Families of Mexico look to Oportunidades for financial aid and stability.

What is “Oportunidades?”

It is a conditional cash transfer anti-poverty program by the Mexican government that has revolutionized economic equality.

The Mexicans social welfare program differs from many in the developed world. Rather than paying out blanket benefits to beneficiaries specific criteria must be met before financial aid is released. Recipients must meet educational, health, and nutrition goals. Already the program covers 5.8 million families or 30% of the total population.

What are the Criteria?

Education, Health, and Nutrition.

Investing in the human capital of the future generation is of primary importance for Oportunidades. To be put in layman’s terms, the Mexican government works to make future citizens be self-sufficient and perhaps even give back to their country through employment and taxes.

Guaranteeing students attend school is vitally important. For each student attending school families receive larger cash transfers. In addition, for each successive year of education the cash transfers grow significantly. Rather than working in the fields engaged students are getting an education. Some even progress to college and acquire class changing jobs.

Health and nutrition are also essential ingredients in the Oportunidades miracle. Cash transfer payments are delivered as long as mothers keep regular medical checkups for their children and enroll themselves in classes detailing disease prevention. Other workshops educate the mothers about dietary needs of their families and the best methods to get the most nutritional food on the table.

“In Mexico today, malnutrition, anemia and stunting have dropped, as have incidences of childhood and adult illnesses. Maternal and infant deaths have been reduced. Contraceptive use in rural areas has risen and teen pregnancy has declined. But the most dramatic effects are visible in education. Children in Oportunidades repeat fewer grades and stay in school longer. Child labor has dropped. In rural areas, the percentage of children entering middle school has risen 42 percent. High school inscription in rural areas has risen by a whopping 85 percent. The strongest effects on education are found in families where the mothers have the lowest schooling levels. Indigenous Mexicans have particularly benefited, staying in school longer.”

CONGRESS PASS THE BUFFETT RULE ON FAIR TAXATION SO THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE & CLOSE CORPORATE TAX LOOP HOLES AND ENACT A PROHIBITION ON HIDING FUNDS OFF SHORE.

The Occupiers exclamation amounts to the government enforcing the graduated income tax on the super-wealthy so that the middle class can return to prosperity. Oportunidades is a physical manifestation of the Occupiers dream. The Mexican anti-poverty program redistributes the wealth of the nation, through taxes, to help and empower the impoverished and middle class. This is what the occupiers need.

America needs Oportunidades just as badly as Mexico did. Currently, 15.1% of Americans live in poverty. 10.5% of Mexicans live in “extreme poverty.” Oportunidades is one of the primary reasons why the United States has been surpassed by Mexico on taking care of its own people. The Occupiers must add reformation in anti-poverty programs in order sustain today’s America and empower future generations.

Are There Any Pilot Oportunidades Programs in America?

New York, ground zero for the Occupy Wall Street, is ironically the flagship of the American anti-poverty program. The private program was entitled Opportunity NYC–Family Rewards. It takes Oportunidades of the rural Mexico and optimizes it for the urban setting. Initial results were promising. The program quantitatively decreased poverty and day-to-day hardships, increased school grades and attendance, proliferated use of health insurance, and even increased dental care. Despite these promising beginnings, under capitalization and a short trial period doomed the program. It is no longer funded.

Instead, Bloomberg pays riot police to prevent the impoverished Occupiers from taking what they were once given.

What’s wrapped in orange netting, tastes like pepper spray, and is synonymous with “revolutionary?” The Occupy Wall Street Movement.

Police Officers Arrest Over 500 Occupiers

What Happened Today?

With chants like, “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho. Corp-rate Greed has got to go!” Hundreds of Occupiers moved from New York City towards Brooklyn, across the historic Brooklyn Bridge. Many took the pedestrian walkway and protested unmolested. An undetermined number of demonstrators were entrapped in the traffic lanes, by police officers. They were cordoned for hours as police officers arrested a few at a time. All were arrested. By 8:05 the Brooklyn Bridge was reopened, much to the inflamed bemusement of commuters.

Growing numbers of Occupy Wall Street protesters, initially it was announced that 400 were arrested, then 500, and now more than700, were arrested in The Battle of Brooklyn Bridge. Many of those who have been arrested have been released with a mere summons. The NYPD is simply running out of resources such as, as many dark humor activists have pointed out, cable ties.

For hours a live feed of the Occupy Wall Street protests have streamed, live, their demands. The growing multitudes voice their demands in call and response pattern; one leader speaks their beliefs and the congregation echoes their concern. Their concerns are simple; protect our environment, protect our security, protect our jobs, and above all protect the rights and political power of the “99%.” The 99% refers to the everyday American, not the Wall Street Broker or the Hollywood Big Shot, but instead the everyday hero.

They fight for every teachers, every soldiers, every salesmen, everybody who has ever worked in a cubicle, and even every police officer. Our jobs have been leached from America, globalized by corporate greed as our national stability is endangered by an increasingly polarized Congress. They are speaking out because the system of checks and balances is out of balance and too many good people are getting hurt for the benefit of a few fat cats, who have bankrupt this once great nation, can lounge in their penthouses. This will not continue, the Occupiers will have victory.

They are campaigning against a broad range of failings that have hurt the American public. Several important issues are combating corporate greed, unshackling union’s collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, and overturning Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a Supreme Court Decision that gave corporations the right to invest unlimited funds in political campaigns. Many demonstrators believe the financial sector, embodied by the Wall Street Stock exchange, to be at the heart of these problems. This is why ground zero for Occupy Wall Street is in New York City; they really just want their voices to be heard in the increasingly polarized and glaringly corporate political battleground.

Will They Be Successful?

Yes.

Their protest is the American manifestation of the Arab Spring, which has uniformly been unstoppable. The trend with this sociopolitical titan has been that nations either meet the demands of the populace or inevitably fall to rebellion. These protests will be historically noted as the beginning of either one or the other in America.

The Arab Spring has already been felt around the world, from the revolting Arab nations successfully completing revolutions, British looting of London, and Greek riots spreading anarchy. Everywhere people are revolting against the same issues, only the names and places are different. It is likely historians will it call the Jasmine Revolution, after its original name with the fiery startup in Tunisia.

These initial protests may not be successful, perhaps doing little more than slowing a few investors commute. What is significant is that Americans are mobilizing not against any specific issue, but instead against the decaying economic order. They are protesting the schism between the astounding wealthy and the numerous poor. This is similar to other “Jasmine Revolutions.”

How Does Occupy Wall Street Resemble the Arab Spring?

Occupy Wall Street, which can be identified as a public organization for economic reform, bears striking similarities to the origins of most Arab Spring revolutions.

I would like to make note that while there have been a few occasions, including one incident involving dangerous use of pepper spray and others where police aggressively arrested unruly protesters, on the whole Occupy Wall Street has not suffered from unexpected amounts of police brutality. This is a large-scale, well covered protest; incidents of this nature happen during such demonstrations. It could be much worse and much more violent. These cases of controversial police aggression are regrettable results from the patriotic activism of the protesters going beyond conventional terms of engagement. These protesters knew the risks when they decided to stand up for what they believed in. The policemen are simply doing their jobs; I would not judge them too critically lest they desert our popular cause entirely. Everybody knows they did wrong, all we can hope is that incidents do not persist.